Brite Futures "Too Young To Kill"

Before I start laying down the public relations script, let me just say I had a minute and a half to kill, so I pressed the arrow button on Brite Futures' video of "Too Young To Kill."

Sure, it's a bit Milky Way but everyone looks so adoreable and the music is so nicely early 80's, like if Chilliwack had a chick in the band.

True story: I just typed "chink," giggled when I noticed the error and then erased the offensive remark.

I rather liked the video and encourage everyone to go out and buy a case of whippets and do them while you watch the video.

Once I went bowling while doing nitrous oxide the entire game.

I scored a 43.

Here's what people who were forced to like the video said about it:


BRITE FUTURES is: David Price (keyboard, guitar, vocals) / Luke Smith (guitar, vocals) / Shaun Libman (vocals) / Conor Sisk (drums) / Claire England (bass, vocals, keyboard)

Dark Past is the new album from Seattle's fun-loving quintet Brite Futures. It is a youthful, swaggering mix of synth-happy pop, rock, funk, disco, and New Wave that has been described as "punk rock Abba disco Osmonds with chainsaws." It challenges the notion that irresistible pop can only be peddled by solo artists propped up by big-name songwriters and major labels. It's game on in Fall 2011 for these pop, indie-minded twenty-somethings when the band releases their new album on November 1st mixed by Eliot James (Two Door Cinema Club, Kaiser Chiefs) and produced by the band's guitarist and vocalist Luke Smith

On first listen to Brite Futures' fiercely catchy new album, Dark Past, it might seem like quite the misnomer. The album's synth-happy mix of New Wave, rock, funk, and dance music packs all the boundless pep of a hyperactive kindergartener on a never-ending sugar high. But tune in closer to these ten tracks and you'll soon hear the pain behind the pop.

"The title Dark Past is a half-serious reflection of the tough times we went through over the past few years," says guitarist Luke Smith, referring to the band's split with Warner Bros. Records during the days when they were known as Natalie Portman's Shaved Head (NPSH).

The band and Warner Bros. Records had different ideas about NPSH's artistic direction and the two parties mutually agreed to end the relationship. The band's dance with the majors left them conflicted - a difficult time that serves as a potent reminder about the importance of creative freedom and what it means to be truly independent. After that experience, Luke, Shaun, Claire, and David decided it was time for a new band name. "For as much attention as being called Natalie Portman's Shaved Head got us, it was also holding us back," Luke says. "It was nice to shed that name and be our own thing for the first time." (Brite Futures address the issue in the final episode of their hilarious "Conversation with Natalie" trilogy on their YouTube channel.)



Now signed to the indie label Turnout, Brite Futures have emerged stronger and excitedly in control of their artistic endeavors, which also include their clever videos and visually inspired merch. "It's like we're a whole new band that got to start all over again," Claire says.

Dark Past is brimming with brilliant moments ....a lovingly stolen Beatles melody on "Too Young To Kill," lyrics that reference The Kinks and Gossip Girl in the same breath, the occasional face-melting guitar solo and the epic and rousing "Black Wedding," which addresses the aftermath of extricating themselves from their contract with WB and reveling in the freedom to make the kind of music they wanted again.

"We want to prove that we can compete with the big guys. You don't see many bands doing this on their own," adds Luke. Noting his pride at Brite Futures' "underdog status," he says he's now happy to have weathered the bad breaks that inspired Dark Past. "We came out the other side with a new sense of confidence, and it's amazing to have this album to be an account of that."

The Recess Monkeys-My Girl

Somewhere around here, there's a review of the Chilliwack album that "My Girl" is from. It was the song that was playing when I walked into my first high school dance and promptly stood to the side of the gym in Wright Fieldhouse with the other guys in my class. It would take a few years before we got enough courage to actually dance to a fast song.
We were sad fucks back then, but we made the most of our weekends-particularly when we got drivers licenses. Prior to that, we had mopeds and SCTV on Friday nights. Much of the first season hasn't aged well, but it got better as the years progressed. By the time Martin Short joined the cast, it was downright brilliant. You can find Saturday Night Live still ripping off some of some of the sketches today.

I can spend hours lost on YouTube looking at shit and a few of those would be devoted enitrely to SCTV stuff.

Chilliwack - Wanna Be A Star

You’ve never heard of Chilliwack?
That doesn’t surprise me; a lot of us had no idea who they were even back when they were an active, hard-working rock outfit from Canada. And to be honest, I had very little knowledge of the band until I went to my very first high school dance.
Yes, my appreciation for Chilliwack is entirely nostalgic. I don’t expect anyone to run out and pick up a Chilliwack album after reading this. Hell, even I didn’t run out and buy a Chilliwack album. From what I understand, most of their output is out of print and, indeed, the copy that I downloaded for this review is riddled with surface noise, scratches, and even a place where the record skips.
In other words, it’s perfect for such a nostalgic consideration.
As a Freshman in high school, the idea of the Homecoming dance was a little discouraging for a newbie student. By the time of the dance (early October), the upperclassmen had already started to cherry-pick the chicks from our class (“Freshman=Freshmeat” read some graffiti in the library) and leave the majority of the male ninth graders with little opportunity for any middling with the opposite sex.
We were, however, fairly resilient, and we kept our plans and made our way (via shoe leather express and strategically distanced drop off points by Mom and Dad) into the high school gymnasium for our first taste of how high-schoolers boogie down.
Understand that we, meaning us guys, had no real experience with dances or, indeed, dancing. Sure, there were dances in Middle School, but we usually tried to get high on shitty weed beforehand and then socialize among our peers until a chick came up and asked us to slow dance.
Dancing to a song that wasn’t a ballad was completely forbidden.
But then I made my way into the Homecoming dance doorway and started to look for other friends. I saw a circle of them at one corner of the basketball court and proceeded over.
The song that was playing was Chilliwack’s “My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone),” at the time (1981) a minor hit because of its new-wave sheen, catchy fingersnaps, and the line “A-gone-gone-gone she been gone so long/She been gone-gone-gone so long” repeated over and over with a reverb soaked baritone voice. It was a neat little piece of top 40 pop rock, and it was the soundtrack playing when I walked across the gymnasium. My memory plays it like a movie, with the gym’s only lights coming from the colored gels hovering on an overhead rig and the obligatory mirror ball.
People were dancing to it. That didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was that dudes were dancing to it. And they were dancing to any song that was playing, occasionally stopping to get their dates a tasty beverage, but nonetheless, they were dancing.
I scanned the dance floor and saw the quarterback of our school’s football team, fresh from their Homecoming victory against the rival Fort Madison Bloodhounds, dancing to this Chilliwack tune with his old lady.
I believe that both were also the Homecoming King and Queen, which makes the scene more like Carrie than you can even imagine.
It dawned on me: rather than hanging around in a circle with dudes my own age, talking about Atari games, we should swallow our pride, start dancing, and then we’d have a better chance at making out with the chicks.
By this time, the DJ had moved on to a slow song, and the quarterback put both of his banana hands on his girlfriend’s ass and began to slip his tongue in her mouth.
The proof was now undisputable; we had to boogie.
So I associate the band Chilliwack with this epiphany, but not to the point where I recognized it until a few weeks ago when I searched for the album that originally held “My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone).”
That album, Wanna Be A Star, is actually a concept album that’s storyline is essentially a hardworking band that’s trying to make a name for themselves. The plot itself isn’t very intrusive and there’s relatively little, aside from the first few songs, that actually attempt to hold the plot together.
Musically, Chilliwack moves from hard rock numbers into polished and intricately arranged pop rock numbers with layers of synthesizers and biting guitar solos. Almost immediately, I thought of comparing them to another Canuck band, Loverboy, if Loverboy had decided to become a lightly progressive outfit instead of a red leather pants wearing rock band.
Wanna Be A Star is a fairly enjoyable effort, but one that could provide a variety of different opinions depending on the listener. As far as this listener is concerned, I’ve had to come up with a rating that would have been higher if I’d let my own nostalgia take over completely.